It is truism that advancement of women will bring development of humankind and yet the denial of equal rights, privileges and prerogatives to the woman continues throughout the world.  The distortion in the relationship between men and women is one of the most puzzling aspects of human condition throughout recorded history. 

All the evidence indicates that such injustices will long persist as the institutions and standards that humanity is devising only slowly become empowered to construct a new order of relationships and to bring relief to the women.  According to the statistics available from the United Nations Statistics Division women of the world grew half of the world’s food, did two third of the work but owned one hundredth of its properties. 

Women formed one third of its formal labour force but earned one tenth of its income.  Women did almost all the domestic work and unpaid work in the world.  Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate were women.  The 1999 figures showed that there were twice as many illiterate women as men, women continued to be paid a third less than men.  The current situation is not much better than that of 1999.

Bahá’u’lláh says: “Both men and women are equal in the sight of God.”   If human consciousness is essentially spiritual in nature--as the vast majority of ordinary people have always been intuitively aware--, its development needs cannot be understood or served through an interpretation of reality that dogmatically insists otherwise. 

The emancipation of women has entailed the willingness of both society’s institutions and popular opinion to acknowledge that there are no acceptable grounds—biological, social or moral—to justify denying women full equality with men, and the girls equal educational opportunities with boys. 

Explaining his approach to resolving gender imbalance Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “Woman is the companion of man gifted with equal mental capacities.  She has the right to participate in the minutest detail of the activities of man, and she has the same right of freedom and liberty as he.” 

Elsewhere he adds: “… Whilst both are fundamentally one, it is equally true that in the form there is a vital difference between the two…. The duty of motherhood, which the vast majority of women will always undertake, requires qualities which the man need not possess.” The healthy partnership of mankind and womankind is crucial to world peace.  The Bahá’í writings offer the analogy of a bird and its two wings – one is women and the other men. 

“Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly.  Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible.  Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be.”